A Brother's Love
by Chase Ravencroft Tilton
Summary: I idolized him. Matthew was everything to me - he represented everything the bastards had taken from me when they killed our clan. We were going to make it out and change the nation, make up for all the pain and loss... Now he'll never get the chance.


A/N:

Before anyone kills me, it's an AU monologue - I'd never really kill off Matthew in any of my fics! T_T

It's a "what if" situation from the perspective of my OC Amyra, the tactician who later finds that Matthew is her elder brother, sent away from the clan for his safety before her birth. (It makes sense in the main story, I swear - have mercy on my soul? )

So...yeah...DON'T KILL MEEEEEEEEEE!

As per usual, I don't own FE7. However, MatthewxGuy, HeathxLegault, and RavenxLucius are SO canon. Don't care what Nintendo says.

(ahem) Anyway, without further ado, and before the lawyers put me back in the little box, I present mah fic. (hits play button)

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_A Brother's Love_

I watched him fall.

My brother, my dearest friend in this world, and the last of my family.

I watched him fall.

I always tried my hardest to watch out for him, to keep him from harm's way. He meant too much to me to lose. Whenever he went in to steal from enemies, or moved in silence past me to make a kill, part of me filled with pride in his skill, while part of me feared for him. Watching your mother and father die will do that to a girl.

Matthew meant so much to me. When we found out that we truly were blood-bound, we were determined to turn our lives around. No more could sorrow touch us – we were going to make it out of this war and make up for lost time.

He'll never get the chance.

My brother and I had spent hours at night talking, laughing about little things, dumb things that had people wondering about the state of our sobriety. But we were so happy.

Happiness has been known to flee before me. I'm a sort of commotion all my own, it seems. But my own joy was in his smile.

He was smiling as he died. An arrow through his chest, and still he smiled as his blood gushed past those lips of his, and he tried to calm me. My protector to the bitter end, he was. He took his role as my elder brother very seriously – one of the few things he was openly serious about. I once asked him why he was so carefree. His reply was that the life of a spy was so dreary on its own that the only way to not end up miserable was to always look on the lighter side of things. Life is far too short for sorrow he told me. Better to live on in whatever happiness you can craft than drift in dregs of misery cast off from society's table. I took that as my creed, and spent so many happy hours by his side.

It was raining during that battle, as most clichéd endings go. I thought it was almost over, that we were safe to press forward. My eyes aren't as good as Matthew's or Kaliska's.

That goddamned archer came from nowhere. He could have surrendered – the fight was already ours, all that was left was to seize the palace. But no, he had to martyr himself. He raised his bow, notched his arrow, and let fly directly at my fiancée, Eliwood.

I remember it in flashes, bits and pieces of it jabbing into my memory and taking hold. A blur of red and green brushed past my shoulder, Eliwood was shoved to the ground, and a sickening thud was heard.

Matthew collapsed to the muddy earth, cape spread about him like the wings of a robin just before taking to the skies. Eliwood picked himself up from the ground, eyes wide and mouth agape as he realized what had happened.

My entire body went numb. The icy winds did nothing to chill me so much as that one moment in time did. I ran forward, feeling as though I were in slow motion. I leaped over my brother, who was being tended by Eliwood and Guy, drew my blade, and took down the archer in a twin cross stroke that would have made my papa proud.

Before I knew it, I was on my knees, my elder brother in my arms. The arrow had been removed from his chest, slicked with blood on the ground beside us. In those frantic moments afterwards, everything that could go wrong did. None of us were carrying any vulnerarys or elixirs. Our healers were all on the other side of the field, unable to reach us fast enough through the mud and dense woods. I was left to sit there, helplessly watching my light fade from the earth.

It wasn't fair. It should have been me. Had I been paying the slightest attention, I would have been the one to spare my love, not my elder brother. Even then, Matthew could have allowed Eliwood to be shot. But out of a brother's love for his baby sister, he refused to let the love of my life be struck down. Instead, he put his own life in danger for him and my future, and was now paying the cost.

That cost was being spilt over my hands and legs, gushing onto my tunic and dripping down my blade. It spilled forth from him, staining the cloak that I loved so much an even deeper shade of vermillion than it had been. I had admired that cloak of his for years.

He smiled up at me, even knowing that he would very likely die within the next few moments, and stroked my cheek, soothing me, begging me to not dwell in sorrow. He reminded me that life was far too short for sorrow – the proof was in my arms.

My brother whispered to me in those final moments how happy I had made him, how these past few months as blood brother and sister and the past few years of friendship had enabled him to grow as a person and given him a new sense of purpose in his life. He wiped my tears to the side, streaking blood across my face on accident as he did so.

He promised to say hello to mama and papa for me. That was the moment that truly forced me to accept what was near. I clutched him tightly, clinging to him like a scared little girl – for in that moment, I truly was just that. In that moment, I was no longer Amyra of the Bladerunners or the tactician of Eliwood's Army. I was just Amy – a little sister who lived and breathed in the life-giving love of her dear brother.

With one last whispered I love you, he breathed his last. I felt the final pulses of blood from his slowing heart; saw the last flutter of his honey-brown eyes. I felt his life leave him, and then felt nothing but frost across my heart and mind as I too faded, not into the world beyond, but into blissful and merciful unconsciousness.

For days after, I was unable to truly function. I would have been better suited to the life of that bastard Nergal's morphs than that of a human. Indeed, I was eerily puppet-like I am told. It was not until nearly two weeks later that I was roused from my trance-like state by my very worried friends. After that, I slowly took up my blade once more, more determined than ever to take down Nergal.

We prepared his body and left him in the care of a nice family in a village we had liberated. When the war is over, Hector promises that we will give him the finest funeral possible back in Ostia. But that's not what my brother would want. He was a simple man, and would have wanted a quiet, peaceful burial. I'll take it up with Hector when it's time.

That trademark scarlet cloak is fastened securely around my shoulders. It will become my calling card in time. I will never let any enemy forget the mark of this cloak, just as I will never forget the way my brother would drape this cloak over me when I was cold. His twin daggers are strapped to my hips, and his clan crest is around my neck. I buried him with my own clan crests, one last gift from sister to brother.

I will never heal fully from this wound. But I will make Nergal pay for this damned war of pride by my own hand. Make no mistake and heed my word – I will repay this in full.

But after the war is over, and Eliwood and I are Lord and Lady Pherae, I will live my life to the absolute fullest, just like my brother wanted me to.

It is my duty and honor as his sister to live on in joy for the both of us. And I will lead a life free of revenge and free of hatred. Life is far too short to devote hatred to anyone or anything – no one is that deserving of my time or my heart, save for my family. As my brother said, one must live like a thief – take what you can, and give nothing back. I swear on my honor that I will take everything I can from life, and never ever give back anything before I am dead and gone. How else can I face my brother if I do not?

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End file.
